Torchwood: The Three Monkeys – Review

James Goss seems to have made a name for himself writing Torchwood stories for Owen and PC Andy. And you can always expect them to be cracking listens, dark and with plenty of character development. His previous stories with this pairing, Corpse Day and The Hope were dark and not easy listens. It’s surprising then that The Three Monkeys takes a completely different tone, proving that Goss is talented at telling any style of story with this pair.

That darker tone doesn’t completely go away, Andy gives Owen a tragic story from his childhood and early years as a policeman, but there is a lot of humour to be had along the way too. Andy and Owen work as a pairing because they are two completely different personalities. Andy is always hopeful while Owen has been around aliens enough to know a lot of times, things aren’t going to go right. It’s also nice that Andy in the audios has had a chance to meet aliens, something that didn’t really happen until Children of Earth.

Where these Torchwood audios are really excellent is in their exploration of the characters. Owen is completely changed after the television story, A Day in the Death and its nice to see more of that characterisation get explored in these audios, as we see how much Owen misses being alive. Andy is also not just a character that is designed for some comic relief, give Red Base a listen to see how he takes charge and has learnt from how Torchwood does things.

Goss mixes the character development with a story that rattles along nicely, though it does slow a little towards the end to a couple of scenes stretched out in limited settings. The beginning of the story suits the settings it inhabits as Owen joins Andy in his police car for a stakeout. But as the story develops it would have been nice to hear them leave the car. But its fun to hear the pair on the run with a mysterious mechanical monkey as they try to work out why people want it so much.

Put the pacing in the latter half of this story is the only issue I had with The Three Monkeys. The chemistry between the two leads, Burn Gorman and Tom Price continues to delight and reminds us why this unusual character pairing was Big Finish striking gold, I wouldn’t be surprised if we got a boxset of adventures with these two at some point, and honestly, I’d probably buy it!

If you are expecting to enjoy a dark story, in keeping with Goss’s other Torchwood outings, then you might come away disappointed, but this is a fun, light story that you need sometimes, rather than the more complex outings we’ve become accustomed too.